i stopped religiously listening to dashboard after he found himself an electric guitar and a full band because, well, i don’t really know why. maybe i was a bit bitter that he put down the acoustic guitar or that he was getting really really popular…but now that i think about it, that was pretty stupid, haha. i’ll have to admit that i’ll always be that guy that will always say “ya, i love dashboard, but you know, only his older stuff,” but in all reality his new stuff is pretty good. his last album, “the shade of poison trees,” i thought was a really good mix of his older stuff and his newer stuff. all the stuff in between wasn’t too bad either, just not the good ol’ dashboard that i was used to.

i’m usually pretty keen on when my favorite artists come out with new material but i do lose track of some bands. i guess i don’t really keep up with dashboard as much only because the “so impossible EP” will be all i ever need from him. that’s 4 tracks that i will never, ever get tired of….almost to the point where i could less if he wrote a million other great songs.

anyway, he came out with a new album not too long ago and i just got it. i haven’t really had a chance to listen to it yet but i got the deluxe version which has 2 cd’s. i loaded that sucker into itunes wondering,”how could he have written 2 cd’s worth of songs? that’s insane.” well, i noticed the 2nd cd has all the same tracks as the 1st one, except they’re all ACOUSTIC.

so on this turkey-less thanksgiving, i would like to give thanks to you, chris, for having the most awesome idea of having 2 versions of the same album.  in fact, i’ll probably listen to the acoustic version first, then the full band version…but i know in my heart that i’ll probably only listen to the acoustic version, thinking back to the days when i used to sing your songs at the top of my lungs.

happy thanksgiving ya’ll!

we finally got to film our super postponed music video on saturday and boy was it a lot of work, but it sure was fun!  i have some pictures taken to about the halfway segment of the filming but i just wanted to give ya’ll a little taste of what we did on saturday and what our main costumes looked like (think alice in wonderland on crack). photos courtesy of mouse.

dressing room

makeup time

iki

like my pimp coat?

greggo

big bow

equipment setup

our director gary doing director stuff

signage

setup

directing us

some shots while filming

my hat flew off

instrument swapping

our first actual picture of us as a band!

there are quite a few pictures of us floating around on facebook if you wanted to see what we looked like in our green screen outfits.  thanks to everyone who made this shoot go as smoothly as it did!  it was seriously one of the best experiences of my life

per request by matt, i have added a like button to my posts! i think it works? try it out!

went to HK for the weekend with my mom, dad and annie!  2 days was definitely not enough time to really enjoy the city but i think we still had an awesome time!  here are some pictures in chronological order:

we had the hello kitty gate!

qt

our vacation had just started and i had already broken something.  (on the plane)

anyone heard of dragon airlines?  pretty nice for economy!

arrival

setting up for xmas…the ghetto way

view from our hotel

it’s never too early for dim sum (9am)

after the feast

one of the main reasons for wanting to go to hk!

so cool

this is one of the five stores in the world i think

i bought these with excitement

but then realized that this was the product of the fisheye so i had to return

taking the train up to the peak

so vertical

i like the fog

on the walk down

2nd of the 3 things i wanted to eat in hk (1st being dim sum)

little man

market of meat

my mom’s hood

mtr

逛街’ing

one of my favorite skylines

more foods

they’re basically family

high school friends laughing at pictures

her clothes are so cool

after dinner the adults go home while the kids go to lkf and play

barhopping

fun fun!

hk brewed beer

more bars with michelle

ok

longest nonsober walk of my life

3rd out of the 3 things i wanted to eat while in hk

on our way to more food

it just doesn’t stop

she was my grandma’s best friend, so she’s basically my other grandma and she turned 88

taking the new glassed floor gondola to lan tau

the glass floor was scary as hell

it got so foggy that we were in a sea of just white

you can just barely see the giant buddha

then it was time to go to the airport

with her new toy

best ending to an awesome little vacation

YESS

hong kong — we’ll be back soon!

i was so afraid that because we live in taiwan that i wouldn’t be able to get this game close to its release date.  not only did i find it, but it only cost me $50US ($15 cheaper than it is in the states!)

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

next post will be hong kong

do you remember the time when MTV played music videos regularly? i’m talking about full length music videos, not the 1 minute clips of videos you’d see on trl with carson daly.  as previously mentioned in my green day post, i used to come home from school and watch mtv just to see a green day video.  sometimes i would get lucky and it would come on within a few songs and sometimes i would have to wait a full rotation and a half because i had just missed it.  either way, i was going to sit there, use the bathroom only during commercial breaks and endure hours of crappy videos just to get to the prize: green day.

as we all grew up and eventually transitioned to the internet to get new music and watch new videos, i have come to believe that we have lost a certain appreciation for the music that basically defines who we are.  back in middle school, i would have to wait for my mom to have free time so she could drive me to the record store to buy a new album that i couldn’t afford.  so i would have to first do some household chores or whatever to make the $13 to buy the album, then carefully decide which album i wanted.  once i bought the album, i would go into my room, close the doors, turn the volume up extra loud and read the liner notes while listening to my new investment.  it was funny because i didn’t even care if the album was horrible, i would force myself to listen to it because, well, it was better than listening to the radio AND it was something new.

nowadays you can download 100 albums at once without even thinking about it.  you can go on youtube or myspace and listen to an album by just searching the band’s name.  back in college, i would get 5 new albums a week on average.  i would listen to each album once and if i didn’t like it, i’d delete it…wouldn’t even give it a chance.  if one of my favorite bands was coming out with a new album, i’d just download it on release date or sometimes even before the release date.  by my 4th year of college, i started to realize that getting new albums just wasn’t that exciting anymore.  i then decided that i would start buying albums the old school way.  i wouldn’t even listen to preview tracks online because i felt that it would spoil the whole “new” factor when i listened for the first time. anyway, i’m getting way off topic here…i think you get the point, haha.

so now that i’m living in taiwan, i have begun to start loving mtv again.  why? because they still play music videos.  one of my favorite, if not my most favorite, artists is a guy named crowd lu (盧廣仲).  he’s sports giant glasses, a bowl cut and some pretty awesome running shorts.  when i heard he was coming out with a new album i was super excited.  when it finally came out, annie and i took the bus to the nearest record store and bought it.  the excitement was back.  i went home, took pictures of the album (for my blog, of course) and proceeded to listen to the album over and over and over again while reading the lyrics and looking at the pictures included with the cd.  it was awesome.

i find myself watching mtv just waiting to see his new music video.  i actually didn’t know that he had come out with a new video until one day, as i was casually watching mtv it came on.  i was so damn excited and so happy that i seriously almost cried (just kidding, but not really).  i guess the reason why i’m writing this post is because 20 minutes ago, the video came on again.  annie and i have been sitting here on the couch for about an hour while i was secretly waiting for the video to come on.  when it finally came on, i stopped everything i was doing, turned up the volume and sang along to my favorite song on his new album.

excitement!!!  now i’m not writing this entry because i wanted to tell everyone that they should do what i do or bash on the thing we all really love (the internet)….i really just wanted an excuse to post this video and it turned into this long reflection about everything.

parents came to visit us in taiwan before we all go off to hk together for the week!  i’m super glad they got to see what our lives are like over here  anyway, here are some pictures i took over the weekend:

mrt

confucius temple which also happens to be our music video location!

they were having a 毛筆 competition

家人

i’ve been to cks a bunch of times and everytime i think it’s pretty damn cool

from the top

weather’s been pretty nice lately

trex at cks wth

excited for hk this weekend!!

happy birthday pooface!!

you’re an independent diva but i still kinda need ya.

although not many people here celebrate halloween, we managed to find the people who do and wow, best halloween!!

annie was chibi maruko chan

is it weird that all i had to do was buy the bow tie? ><

pre party as usual (francesca the 台妹, MJ wes, tony & chris the caped people and aileen the zombie)

a lot of pictures you’ve probably seen before, except now we’re wearing costumes

francesca, i see yo finger

we stole some fingers

fingers in my pocket

can you see baer?

we found allen (yofroyo!)

so funny story…the cops ended up raiding primo for some odd reason.  all we really remember is dancing to lady gaga when all of the sudden, the music just stops and the lights all go on.  then we heard announcements on the PA saying everyone take out your id’s etc.  we basically just hung out at the dj table for a while…

after the raid was over, baer had to go dj at another party so we decided to tag along with him because he seriously plays the best music.  we go outside to see that there are a billion people outside waiting to get inside.  made us feel pretty cool haha

a 5 minute cab ride later and we find ourselves here

a closer look at baer’s costume

CERRITOS IS IN LOS ANGELES

cab ride to 豆漿

end of an awesome night!

oh ya, and aileen can be seen here drying her phone because it dropped in the toilet

halloween is by far probably the best holiday of the year.

*most photos courtesy of wes and francesca

!!!

YESSS!!! best halloween ever.

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